Babel (or, 21 Grams Part Deux)

Guns are bad.

You don't have to see the film anymore.

If you've seen 21 Grams you'll know what to expect. Gritty depressing but ultimately hollow posturing. And plenty of it.

I've been following Iñárritu since his excellent debut, Amores Perros but since then I have come to see his films as pointless narrative sliced and spliced to appear more interesting. Babel raises this to high art. It is a pity because, structually, when it is done well, the interlocking, interweaving personal drama is one of my favourites. The key is finding the thematic balance and the integrated tone. Babel had neither.

The three stories are reasonably unrelated, with the least related of them being the most interesting. This of course doesn't bode well for the film as a whole.

I'm probably being harsh. Babel is a film I have been hanging out for and it disappointed on so many levels. The performances of Cate and Brad are less than unremarkable and their characters are not even one dimensional. The film, despite its title, has little to do with language and when it tries to deal with language directly it comes across as flippant. And it is boring.

Don't bother.